Transcriptome analysis and exploring RNAi and CRISPR in the Neotropical stink bug, Euschistus heros
Resumo
One of the main factors limiting agricultural production is the attack of insects,
pathogens and weeds, which can cause significant losses in the culture. Euschistus
heros (Heteroptera: Pentatomidae) is one of the most important stink bug species
found in soybean, with occurrence distributed throughout the Brazilian production
area. In an attempt to reduce the damage caused by this and other insects, producers
depend almost exclusively on the use of insecticides. However, the indiscriminate use
of these products has been causing serious management problems, such as the
selection of resistant populations leading to the inefficiency of products available on
the market. Therefore, the development of alternative control tools, such as gene
silencing based on RNA interference (RNAi) and CRISPR (Clustered Regularly
Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) is necessary. RNAi is a highly conserved
mechanism in eukaryotic organisms and by which the messenger RNA molecule
(mRNA) is cleaved by the gene-silencing machinery, leading to inactivation of gene
expression (Knockdown). CRISPR, on the other hand, is a gene editing tool with which
it is possible to carry out modification at the DNA level, introducing or eliminating
specific DNA sequences from the genome (knockout). During the last years, the use
of RNAi and CRISPR has attracted the interest of researchers, mainly in the study of
the functions of genes during insect’s development and reproduction, which will allow
the future development of alternative control strategies. Thus, considering the
importance of RNAi and the CRISPR / Cas9 system in the study of functional genomics
and in the development of new tools for the management of insect pests, the objectives
of this study include: i) to identify the main components of the RNAi machinery present
in E. heros, as well as validating the functionality of this tool in E. heros; ii) a review
showing the potential use of the RNAi tool in a non-transformative approach; iii) the
use of parental RNAi as a tool in the study of gene functions in E. heros; iv) the
combination of RNAi and CRISPR/Cas9 as functional genomic tools in the Neotropical
bug, E. heros. This information provides novel and important dataset on RNAi
machinery and its efficiency, the future perspective of non-transformative RNAi
approaches and the use of RNAi and CRISPR as tools in functional genetic studies,
underpinning future strategies to improve RNAi and CRISPR in E. heros and other
piercing-sucking insects species important in agriculture.
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